Calling itself "the definitive biography of Elizabeth Seton," American Saint, by New York Times best-selling author Joan Barthel, was just released on March 4, 2014. American Saint is the first full-length biography of St. Elizabeth Seton to be written in nearly fifty years. Published by St. Martin's Press, the book includes a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Maya Angelou and has garnered advance praise from well-known novelist Mary Higgins Clark. Drawing heavily from the saint's own collected writings, American Saint traces Elizabeth's life from her childhood as a wealthy Episcopalian to her death as an impoverished Catholic who founded the first order of American nuns and became the first American-born canonized saint.

The book does not shy away from the darkness of Elizabeth's earlier years. Her mother died when Elizabeth was just three years old, and her father remarried one scant year later. Elizabeth's father and stepmother then separated du…